


Pomegranate Skies

by MalecAcid



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Angst, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Ben Hargreeves-centric, Bittersweet Ending, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, Mild Gore, No Incest, POV Ben Hargreeves, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecAcid/pseuds/MalecAcid
Summary: "Well I'm tired of looking like a monster. I want to be a hot mermaid like these two over here," Klaus said, gesturing between Diego and Vanya who shared looks of disgust. "I'm going to the surface tomorrow to look for the sea frog thing. And you, mi hermano, are coming with me."ORA siren cursed the Hargreeves and the only way for Ben to fulfill his prophecy is to steal the heart of a pirate.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves/Jill
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	Pomegranate Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Let's start off with warnings before we dive into this mess of a fic, bc there's actually a few kfkskdk 
> 
> ‼️Warning for mention of drowning/not breathing and some mild gore‼️
> 
> So I rb-ed a dialogue list of prompts on tumblr for this,,,, but then this prompt got slightly out of hand so I decided to post it on here too jejsjdkskdksk it was supposed to be around 200 words, for reference. 
> 
> The dialogue prompt was "Don't tell me what to do! It's _my_ curse." And livtontea requested it with more details about Benji and sea monster Ben and I love them they are amazing pls look at their fics 
> 
> They also helped me come up with this title which has nothing to do with this fic bc they are in fact, that bitch <33
> 
> Anyways I hope you like itttt 🥺🥺

Whenever his siblings had decided that they wanted to be pirates, sail the world and never look back to their childhoods, Ben couldn't really say no. 

It was six against one, so he had no other choice but to go with them on a seemingly never ending adventure. He had known it was a bad idea, leaving everything they knew behind, but he definitely didn't anticipate the fact that they were going to get cursed by a magical siren that had basically been waiting for years for a ship to pass by her just so she could curse the people on it. 

Unknowingly, Ben, on his turn steering the boat, had just brushed by the rock that had been the sirens home. Apparently, that was just enough to wake her and make her angry enough to curse them all. 

Ben had known it was a bad idea. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to let his siblings live it down. If they lived through it. 

The siren had made an angry face, waved her hand around, and suddenly their ship had a massive hole in it and was quickly sinking. 

Like the idiots they were, they didn't plan well enough to have lifeboats, and they all ended up drowning. 

They drowned, but they didn't die. As they were being consumed by the deep dark waters of the ocean, the siren had sighed, waved her hand again, and they were breathing once again. Only this time, they were underwater. 

Each of their bodies started to change slowly and painfully. Allison grew webs between her fingers and toes, Luther's eyes moved to the sides of his head, Diego's teeth grew sharp, Vanya had fins pop out of the top of her head and back, Klaus grew gills on his neck, Five's legs molded together, and Ben… 

Ben grew tentacles that remained permanently on his stomach. Fantastic. 

The siren has said something about prophecies, and mermaids, and monsters to all of them, but Ben didn't really listen until she moved towards him, an evil smile on her face as she swirled her hand around dramatically in the water. 

"You will have to steal the heart of someone who was just like you." She said, her smile growing into a harsh grin filled with sharp teeth. "Once your prophecy is complete, you will become a mermaid and no longer be such a hideous beast. You will never go back to the life you once had." 

Ben stayed there staring straight forward as she moved on to Klaus, saying something about his prophecy that Ben didn't care enough to pay attention to. He was too horrified by his own that the siren had given to him. 

He didn't want to steal someone's heart. He didn't want to hurt anyone. 

When later heard what his siblings' prophecies were, he felt pretty cheated. 

"All you have to do is find a comb thing?" Ben asked Allison incredulously. "I have to literally rip a pirate's heart out. What did I do to piss off that siren." 

"Well," Klaus started, moving to be next to Ben. "You were the one driving the boat." 

"Your task is easy too!" He said, deflecting. "Find some rare sea frog. Why do I have to hurt someone?" 

"I think you're taking this a bit too literally bro." Diego cut in, swimming up to them with the knife that ended his curse in his hand. 

Ben rolled his eyes. "What do you know. Your curse ended the day it started." 

"Yeah," He responded, flipping the knife in the water. "That's because it was easy." 

Ben groaned. "Why. Why did I agree to do that stupid pirate journey-" 

"Oh come on." Vanya cut him off, swimming into view. "You know it was fun, and look," She swam around in a circle. "If you fulfill your prophecy, you get to be a mermaid. I still really don't think things ended up being too shity."

"You had to kill a fish." Ben said, voice flat. "I have to rip a heart out of a person's chest. We are not the same." 

"Well, if you'd stop complaining and actually go to the surface to find a pirate-" 

"Don't tell me what to do!" Ben quickly cut Klaus off, and he rolled his eyes. "It's _my_ curse. Get rid of your own first."

"Well I'm tired of looking like a monster. I want to be a hot mermaid like these two over here," Klaus said, gesturing between Diego and Vanya who shared looks of disgust. "I'm going to the surface tomorrow to look for the sea frog thing. And you, mi hermano," He continued, wrapping an arm around Ben's shoulders. "Are coming with me." 

After thinking about it for a moment, Ben relented. "Fine. But don't expect anything to happen. I'm nowhere near the point of being willing to kill someone. It hasn't even been three days yet."

Klaus rolled his eyes again. "I think you might be surprised by how easy your curse will be to break."

Ben hummed disbelievingly, but didn't say anything else. 

He figured that he should save his voice to use it to complain all day tomorrow instead.

* * *

When Klaus eventually was able to get Ben up and moving, Ben found that he actually didn't really want to complain. 

He wanted to end the curse. He didn't want to be an ugly monster anymore, and the tentacles that stuck out from his stomach were always annoyingly getting in the way of _everything_.

That didn't mean he was ready to do what he thought was needed to be done, though. He didn't want to steal someone's heart. He didn't want to reach into their chest and pull it out and make their blood spill, didn't want to kill them. 

It didn't take too long for them to get to the surface, and Klaus pulled Ben to sit up on the first available rock. It was the first time that they had been out of the ocean since they had been cursed, and Ben couldn't say that he liked it. 

"So," Klaus started after only a minute of sitting on the rock, jumping back into the water, "I'm gonna go look for this frog thing. I think that siren bitch said it was green, or maybe orange. No! It was purple! Yeah, purple. Anyways I'll be back in, like, an hour, if I find the frog-" He shook his head with a smile. "Well, if I find the frog you'll be able to tell. Bye Benny, have fun stealing hearts."

Before Ben could say anything in response to that, Klaus dove under the water, and he sighed, turning his head to look up to the sky. It was dark, but filled with thousands of stars. Ben couldn't remember the last time he had seen stars. 

What had only felt like a split second must have been an hour, because suddenly Klaus popped up from under the water, splashing Ben in the face with his new tail. Ben tried not to look too disappointed at the sight. 

"What color was it then?" Ben asked, a small smile on his face. 

Klaus moved to sit on the rock next to him, elbowing his side. "Yellow, actually." 

He laughed quietly before going completely silent, looking back up to the stars. 

"You know," Klaus started, and Ben sighed, looking down at the water, already knowing what he was going to say. "It might be a while until anyone passes by-"

"You can go back." He said, cutting him off. "If you want, considering you already got rid of your curse."

Klaus leaned back suddenly, almost as if he was surprised by what he said, and Ben tilted his head in confusion. "That's… not what I was going to say." He said, and Ben let out a quiet "oh." 

"I was just going to ask how long you wanted to stay for? Because we can always come back." Klaus asked, and Ben shrugged. 

They ended up agreeing on coming once a week for a few hours at a time, but, of course, that plan fell apart as time went on. 

Eventually, Klaus stopped coming with him and stayed with their siblings and his new mermaid boyfriend instead. 

All of Ben's siblings had fulfilled their prophecies and gotten rid of their curses within a month of getting them, and yet, here Ben still was, going up to the surface for hours at a time, and still had not even seen a pirate that he might be able to try and steal the heart of. 

Every once in a while, a ship would pass by a few miles away from the rock Ben always stayed on, but he never had the courage to swim out towards it. None of the ships ever came close enough to notice the tentacle monster, glued to his rock. 

Within a year, Ben had stopped swimming back down to be with his siblings. He stayed on the rock constantly, waiting and watching. 

Every once in a while, his siblings would come to visit him, bringing their partners and new friends, and Ben still sat. Waiting. 

He loved Claire, Allison's daughter, and he adored Diego's girlfriends, Eudora and Lila, but not even they could convince him to come back down into the depths of the ocean. 

Another year had passed, and there had only been one instance when a ship passed close by enough for the people on it to see him, and he had blown his first chance to actually break his curse. 

The ship had turned his way while he sat on the rock, but before anyone could see him, he jumped off of it and hid behind the larger side. 

As the ship came closer, he heard someone say something about seeing a person in the water, and he immediately started swimming downwards, watching the ship move away from a mile below before glumly swimming back up to his rock. 

Even if he had stayed, what would he have said? Was he supposed to just grab one of them and kill them before ripping their heart out of their chest? What if the others on the ship killed him in return? 

Either way, he still didn't think that he would be able to do that. What was he supposed to do after he took the heart anyways? Was he supposed to keep it? If he got rid of it would his curse come back? 

He really didn't want to do this. 

He really, _really_ didn't want to sit on this rock for the rest of his monstrous life. 

He didn't know what to do.

* * *

Not too long after the first incident, another much smaller and much less populated ship started to come by. 

It wasn't even a ship, really. It was more of a lifeboat with only one person on it, sitting in the center and floating around aimlessly. 

Just as Ben had the first time, when he saw the ship turn towards him, he jumped off of the highest point of the rock and moved to hide himself behind it, only sticking his head up enough to watch as the person got closer. 

The person on the ship was _beautiful_. She had dark skin and big bright eyes full of life, despite the circumstance she was in. She had on blue clothes and a large captains hat, her glasses sitting high on her nose. 

He must've been too distracted with his staring to notice the way her ship only drifted closer, and by the time he actually did notice, it was far too late for him to swim away. 

The second she saw him, her face lit up with a grin, and he couldn't help but smile back and pull himself up further on the rock, still shielding the lower half of his body with it.

"Hey!" She called out, using her hands to propel herself closer. And he tried to ignore the way his stomach dropped when she pulled her boat close enough to the rock to hop out of it, making it secure enough to come sit close to him. He pressed himself harder into the rock, hoping that none of his tentacles were showing. 

"H-hey," He managed to get out, and she tilted her head, a small smile on her face. 

"So," She started, looking around the expanse of nothingness. "I'm assuming you're stranded too?" He nodded. "Yeah, why else would you be out on a rock in the middle of the ocean."

"Yeah, yeah. There's no other reason. I'm definitely stranded." 

She laughed a little bit before sticking her hand out. "I'm Jill." 

He reached out with a shaky hand and shook hers before quickly pulling it back. She looked at him oddly, but didn't say anything. She was kind, he could tell. 

"Yeah, me and my crew got shipwrecked, hit a bunch of rocks. This was the only boat left," She put a hand on the small wooden boat, "And by the time the ship had gone down, all of the guys were gone. They probably think I'm dead or something." 

She tilted her head down, and Ben couldn't help but notice the way her eyes watered slightly. He didn't know what to say, so he moved his hand from where he was holding himself up on the rock to pat her knee in what he hoped was a reassuring way. She looked back up at him and smiled. 

"So, what happened to you?" She asked, discreetly wiping her eyes with her sleeve. 

Ben froze. "What." 

"How did you get here, I mean." She said, moving to lay on her back and look up at the sky. The sun was already starting to set, and her eyes shined in the light. 

"I uh," He started, shifting slightly in the water, unsure of what he could say. "I went sailing with my siblings." 

"Oh?" She said, turning on her side to face him. "Are they okay?" 

"Yeah. They're okay, I think." He said, and she gave him a slightly sympathetic look. 

"Do they know you're here?" She questioned, and he paused, unsure of what to say.

"Yes? Probably. No." He answered before wincing at his stupidity. He couldn't _tell her_ about the curse, she would run away even if he wasn't planning on taking her heart. He would've run away too.

She gave a small laugh. "What?" 

"Well," He started, trying to think of something to save himself with. "I think they know I'm alive, but not that I'm like, in this certain place." He was pretty sure that he saved it, and it wasn't even really a lie. 

"That makes sense." She said, turning back on her back, and he sighed quietly in relief. "My crew knows I'm in the ocean, just doesn't know whether I'm still above or under the water."

He hummed, and moved his legs back and forth in the water as a fairly comfortable silence fell between them. Ben didn't know any silence could be comfortable, let alone a silence with someone he'd just met. 

He didn't really know where to go from there. He didn't want to rip _anyone's_ heart out, especially not Jill's. He had only known her for a few minutes, but he knew he couldn't do it. He could barely handle just the thought of it. 

The silence between them only lasted a moment more before Jill spoke up. "What are we gonna do?" 

"I don't know."

* * *

They talked on the rock for what must've been hours, slowly getting to know each other. Ben could've sworn that at each smile Jill gave him one of his tentacles disappeared, but it was probably just him focusing on her rather the uncomfortable-ness of them. 

When enough time for the sun to start to rise again had passed, Jill yawned from across from him before giving him a small and sad smile. 

"I think… I think I have to go." She said, and Ben felt his heart drop. "I can't stay on this rock forever, but…" She trailed off, looking at him hopefully. "Would it be too crazy if I asked you to come with me?" 

He couldn't hold back his grin, despite the fact that he already knew his answer would be something that would disappoint her. The fact that she asked at all made his heart flutter in his chest. "I… I can't." He said, shaking his head. 

She looked sad, but nodded. "Okay." 

He closed his eyes, but instead of seeing her climbing back into her boat like he had expected when he opened them again, she was right in front of his face and moving forward, kissing him on his cheek quickly and lightly. 

She pulled back, and Ben stared at her in surprise, the tips of his ears flushing slightly. 

In the face of his silent reaction, she shifted awkwardly. "I hope that was okay, because I figured that's where this was going-?' 

"Yeah! No, yeah, it was fine. It was great." Ben said, effectively cutting her off and embarrassing himself. 

She laughed a little before actually climbing into her boat, pushing it off of the rock, and giving him a small wave while she started to drift off. 

He waved back, trying not to feel too sad as he watched her disappear into the horizon. 

When she had completely left his vision, he sighed, head tilting down. 

Ben had, once again, screwed up another chance to get rid of his curse. If this was what would happen any time a pirate passed by, how could he ever even start to hope to look less monstrous? 

He sighed again, jumping up completely onto the rock now that she was gone and looking up to the sky. It shined almost as bright as Jill's eyes had. 

When he went to look back down to his lap to sulk some more, he fully expected to see several tentacles poking out of his stomach. 

What he didn't expect to see, but what he did see, was a flat stomach, clear of any ugly sticky tentacles, and a blue mermaid tail where his legs once were. 

Which was… weird. He didn't know what had changed, but he definitely did know that he hadn't ripped anyone's heart out. 

Oh well. He would take what he could get.

* * *

And when Jill eventually found her crew again and they went back out on the seas, she couldn't help but try and search for a boy with dark hair hiding his body behind a rock.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you likeddd


End file.
